Why QEM

Many recent financial events like the 2008 financial crisis, the following Eurozone debt crisis, and the credit crunch among others demonstrate that the cutting edge in economic research lags behind world economic realities, leaving policy makers in uncharted waters. This lag emphasizes the need for economists with engineering skills: with the ability to master economic theory, practice and implementation techniques, acquire knowledge from some related fields, and understand advanced research topics to design integrated answers.

A QEM graduate with those qualifications will be able to:

bridge research and practical issues and efficiently solve real world problems

fit the specific needs of multiple sectors including international organizations, NGOs, government, finance, insurance and industry

Top reasons why students choose to study in QEM

Course content: In attempting to tackle the training needs dictated by the economic challenges mentioned above, the study programme of the Erasmus Mundus Master Course QEM – Models and Methods of Quantitative Economics (here after Master Economics QEM) will provide to the Graduates:

Both research and professionally oriented training, preparing students equally for research or for an economic engineering career in a new curriculum;

A critical understanding of the scientific concepts and methods they have learned in the curriculum;

The capacity to work independently on complex situations, and develop and implement ideas of their own.

Graduates will be able to analyze economic and econometric problems and conduct theoretical and empirical investigations with a high degree of complexity.

The Master Economics QEM programme will counterbalance the traditional separation between applied and theoretical academic tracks by preparing students simultaneously for research and economic engineering careers with interactions all across the economics curriculum. Students who aim to a professional career will then receive a research oriented training, while students who want to continue in a PhD will also acquire engineering skills.

International dimension: The international dimension of the Master Economics QEM programme, provides students exposure to different European cultures and connection to a worldwide network through the Master's economics programmes at the campus located at Paris in France, Brussels in Belgium, Warsaw in Poland, Barcelona in Spain, Venice in Italy. Partner Universities by joining forces and exploiting reciprocities are jointly offering a richer and more versatile curriculum than any of the individual Partners alone. The programme is thus able to offer a single innovative package, using all of the good practices of the Partner universities.

Mobility: Research/educational training in economics (or social sciences in general) tend to be small with the obvious consequence that they tend to specialize in somewhat narrow domains. Building a network allowing the mobility of students generates an environment large enough to create and benefit from increasing returns to scale with cross-fertilization and important spillovers across various fields related to Economics. Moreover, mobility between countries creates another dimension for knowledge and education,that students obtain through the immersion in different cultural environments.

Programme Assistance: Administrative staff provide general assistance to students including airport pick-up and help with locating suitable housing and furnishings. The Application Help Desk staff are happy to answer questions regarding visas and immigration status, work permits, cultural life and Optional Practical Training.

Alumni Network: Since its beginning in 2005, the program has maintained a strong network of alumni from numerous countries. Please consult the Student and Alumni Networks.